Faculty and students can view films from the Women's Studies collection with a reservation. Faculty can also check out films for a class or for their personal viewing. Our film collection is located in the third floor of Hutchinson Hall in the Women's Studies Office J 334-B. (Directions: Hutchinson Hall, 3rd floor, go all the way through the College of Education Lobby and the office is on your right.) Visit our FAQ page for more detailed instructions.

Films are available for viewing by students or faculty during the Office Hours or during the teach hours of the Director, Dr. Emliy K. Filardo, by appointment.

This documentary feature explores
and contrasts changes in Poland and South Africa regarding abortion laws and
their impact on the lives of women. The film reveals how
the legal status of women is a direct result of the silencing or empowering of
women's voices. In the Polish society and media, women's perspectives were made
invisible; in South Africa, on the other hand, they were invited to give public
hearings in the parliament about problems in the realm of reproduction. The film aims to
emphasize the need for safe abortions and liberal abortion laws. It also,
however, illustrates the paradox that the implementation of such laws may have
little effect on the accessibility of abortion services. In Poland, for
example, illegal abortions are quite available and relatively safe; in South
Africa, where the law is very liberal, women have a harder time getting
information and services in public hospitals due to judgmental behavior of the
health staff. Only a change in the fundamental social and cultural attitudes
towards abortion, contraception, and reproductive health can ensure a woman's
right to choose in a world where about 80.000 women die every year from unsafe
abortions.

In the
90's, Poland banned abortion due to the increasing influence of the Catholic
Church after the fall of communism; around the same time South Africa legalized
it, reforming the health system after the fall of apartheid.

Featuring Sut
Jhally, Advertising & the End of the World features an illustrated
presentation by Sut Jhally of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, the
producer and writer of the award-winning Dreamworlds series. Focusing directly
on the world of commercial images, he asks some basic questions about the
cultural messages emanating from this market-based view of the world: Do our
present arrangements deliver what they claim -- happiness and satisfaction? Can
we think about our collective as well as our private interests? And, can we
think long-term as well as short-term?

Drawing from the broad arena of commercial imagery, and utilizing
sophisticated graphics, Advertising & the End of the World addresses the
issues these questions raise, encouraging viewers to reflect on their own
participation in the culture of consumption. Making the connection between
society's high-consumption lifestyle and the coming environmental crisis,
Jhally forces us to evaluate the physical and material costs of the consumer
society and how long we can maintain our present level of production.

Sections Include:
Advertising as Culture | How Do We Become Happy? | What Is Society? | How Far
into the Future Can We Think? | Imagining a
Different Future.

"Powerful, compelling,
and disturbing--a devastating and seamless critique of advertising. Sut Jhally
is one of the most important and intelligent critics of commercialism in the
world today... A 'must see' video for anyone interested in media, advertising,
or economics."- Juliet Schor | Harvard University

ALICE WALKER: BEAUTY IN TRUTH tells the compelling story of an extraordinary woman. Alice Walker made history as the first black woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction for her groundbreaking novel, The Color Purple. Her early life unfolded in the midst of violent racism and poverty during some of the most turbulent years of profound social and political changes in North American history during the Civil Rights Movement. Mixing powerful archival footage with moving testimonials from friends and colleagues such as Howard Zinn, Angela Y. Davis, Gloria Steinem, Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Quincy Jones, Steven Spielberg and Danny Glover, ALICE WALKER: BEAUTY IN TRUTH offers audiences a penetrating look at the life and art of an artist, intellectual, self-confessed renegade and human rights activist.

"An intimate, exquisitely rendered portrait of one of the great artists of our time."Ava DuVernayFilmmaker & Founder of AAFRM

Asking For It - The
Ethics and Erotics of Sexual Consent (#WS-3)

Directed
& Edited by Sut Jhally. 2010
38 min. USA. English Subtitles

The line between sexual consent and sexual coercion is not always as clear as
it seems -- and according to Harry Brod, this is exactly why we should approach
our sexual interactions with great care. Brod, a professor of philosophy and
leader in the pro-feminist men's movement, offers a unique take on the problem
of sexual assault, one that complicates the issue even as it clarifies the
bottom-line principle that consent must always be explicitly granted, never
simply assumed. In a nonthreatening, non-hectoring discussion that ranges from
the meanings of "yes" and "no" to the indeterminacy of
silence to the way alcohol affects our ethical responsibilities, Brod
challenges young people to envision a model of sexual interaction that is most
erotic precisely when it is most thoughtful and empathetic.
Ideal for classes in gender studies, communication, and sociology, and
especially useful for extracurricular programs and workshops.

How do our families influence our
relationship with our own bodies? How do American pop culture's standards of
beauty get inside our hearts and heads? In what ways can sport and the drive
for fitness actually make us sick rather than healthy?
In this
courageous, deeply personal new film, Diane Israel examines American culture's
toxic emphasis on thinness, beauty, and physical perfection. Israel, a
Boulder-based psychotherapist and former champion triathlete, talks candidly
about her own struggle with eating disorders and obsessive exercising,
fearlessly confronting her own painful past as she tries to come to terms with
American culture's unhealthy fixation on self-destructive ideals of beauty and
competitiveness.
The film lends
context to Israel's personal odyssey with fascinating insights from athletes,
body builders, fashion models, and inner-city teens, as well as prominent
cultural critics and authors such as Eve Ensler, Paul Campos, and Naomi Wolf.
In a special bonus feature, Israel talks in detail about where she is in her
recovery 2 years after the filming of Beauty Mark.

bell hooks: Cultural Criticism & Transformation (#WS-102)

Producer & Director: Sut Jhally. 66 mins. 1997. Subtitles: English.

bell hooks is one of America's most accessible public intellectuals. In this two-part video, extensively illustrated with many of the images under analysis, she makes a compelling argument for the transformative power of cultural criticism.

In Part One, hooks discusses the theoretical foundations and positions that inform her work (such as the motives behind representations, as well as their power in social and cultural life). hooks also explains why she insists on using the phrase "white supremacist capitalist patriarchy" to describe the interlocking systems of domination that define our reality.

In Part Two, she demonstrates the value of cultural studies in concrete analysis through such subjects as the OJ Simpson case, Madonna, Spike Lee, and Gangsta rap. The aim of cultural analysis, she argues, should be the production of enlightened witnesses - audiences who engaged with the representations of cultural life knowledgeably and vigilantly.

bell hooks is the author of numerous critically acclaimed and influential books on the politics of race, gender, class, and culture. Celebrated as one of our nation's leading public intellectuals by The Atlantic Monthly, as well as one ofUtne Reader's "100 Visionaries Who Could Change Your Life," she is a charismatic speaker who divides her time among teaching, writing, and lecturing around the world.

Every 30 minutes a farmer in India kills himself in despair because he
can no longer provide for his family. Will Ramkrishna be next? A cotton farmer
at the epicenter of the suicide crisis region, he is struggling to keep his
land. Manjusha, the neighbors’ daughter, is determined to overcome village
traditions and become a journalist. Ramkrishna’s plight becomes her first
assignment. The Globalization
Trilogyis made
up of three films, each explores a deeper layer of the production-consumption
chain. Part I: China Blue (WS-52), Part II: Store Wars (WS-50).

The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 mobilizes a treasure trove of 16mm material shot by Swedish journalists who came to the US drawn by stories of urban unrest and revolution. Gaining access to many of the leaders of the Black Power Movement—Stokely Carmichael, Bobby Seale, Angela Davis and Eldridge Cleaver among them—the filmmakers captured them in intimate moments and remarkably unguarded interviews.

Thirty years later, this lush collection was found languishing in the basement of Swedish Television. Director Göran Olsson and co-producer Danny Glover bring this footage to light in a mosaic of images, music and narration chronicling the evolution one of our nation's most indelible turning points, the Black Power movement.

The Body Beautiful
(#WS-53)A film by Ngozi Onwurah,1991, 23 minutes. U.S.

This bold, stunning exploration
of a white mother who undergoes a radical mastectomy and her Black daughter who
embarks on a modeling career reveals the profound effects of body image and the
strain of racial and sexual identity on their charged, intensely loving bond.

At the heart of
Onwurah’s brave excursion into her mother’s scorned sexuality is a provocative
interweaving of memory and fantasy. The filmmaker plumbs the depths of maternal
strength and daughterly devotion in an unforgettable tribute starring her
real-life mother, Madge Onwurah.

A tribute to the resiliency of
childhood and the restorative power of art, Born into Brothels is a portrait of
several unforgettable children who live in Calcutta's red light district, where
their mothers work as prostitutes. Spurred by the kids' fascination with their
camera, Zana Briski, a New York-based photographer living in the brothels and documenting
life there, decides to teach them
photography.

As they begin to look at and record their world through new eyes, the kids,
whom society refused to recognize, awaken for the first time to their own
talents and sense of worth.
Filmmakers Ross Kauffman and Zana Briski capture the way in which beauty can be
found in even the seemingly bleakest and most hopeless of places, and how art
and education can empower children to transform their lives.

An important exploration of issues rarely touched upon by most films portraying female-to-male (FTM) transgender experiences, this feature-length documentary sets itself apart from other recent films on this topic. Tackling the resistance of some women in feminist and lesbian communities who view FTM transitioning as at best a "trend" or at worst an anti-feminist act that taps into male privilege, this groundbreaking film opens up a dialog between the lesbian, feminist, and transgender communities while also promoting understanding of transgender issues for general audiences.

In the course of the film, three young transitioning FTMs in New York City- Nicco, Norie and Keegan- go through major junctures in their transitions, discussing everything from their relationships with their bodies, feminism, and the intersection of race and class with their transgender identity. Their stories are interspersed with interviews with lesbians, activists and theorists who engage with the often-contentious questions and issues that are raised within the queer and feminist communities but are rarely discussed openly. Situating these struggles and stories as inextricably linked to queer and feminist struggles, BOY I AM presents an empowering chronicle of queer resistance that challenges all viewers to rethink their concepts of activism and identity.

"An experiment in cross-breeding between academia and the street, it succeeds in teaching us all as laboratory subjects in an ongoing movement for social and economic justice."

Brand New You: Makeover Television and the American Dream (WS #101)

Producer / Director: Katherine Sender. 53 min. Subtitles: English.

What do popular television makeover programs like What Not to Wear, The Biggest Loser, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, and The Swan tell us about how to look and feel? What do they tell us about what a good life looks like in contemporary America? This new film based on Katherine Sender's book The Makeover explores these questions against the backdrop of American ideals of self-invention and upward mobility. Asking what it means to be an authentic self in an increasingly mediated world -- to be both ordinary and special, to be happy with who we are while always wanting something better -- Brand New You shows how the interventions featured in makeover shows, from weight loss to cosmetic surgery, reproduce conventional norms of physical attractiveness and success. Taking a wider social and cultural view, it also shows how these programs have become models of self-transformation at precisely the same time jobs have become harder to find and keep, and women and men have been forced to remake themselves to compete in a rapidly changing labor marketplace.

"Brand New You gives makeover shows their very own makeover. Filled with brilliant commentary and lively footage, it explains the origins and workings of 'reality' media across history."- Toby Miller | Professor of Media & Cultural Studies at the University of Cardiff | Author of Makeover Nation: The United States of Reinvention.

This 11-minute
documentary gives insight into the activist efforts of a group of men in the
town of Gloucester, MA. Using footage from anti-violence marches and centering
on community men speaking out against violence and domestic abuse, this video
is an effective case study of how men can come together to challenge the
violent construction of masculinity. With its focus on taking action to make
change,

Breaking Our Silence is an excellent case study of the theories
presented in MEF's Tough Guise.

This film examines
how victimization enters into women's most intimate relationships with men. The
result is a refreshingly candid, and nuanced, look at how young women are
forced to grapple with deeply ambivalent cultural attitudes about female sexuality.
Essential for courses that look at popular culture, gender norms, sexuality,
and sexual violence.

An exuberant and inspiring ambassador for the Caribbean, Calypso Rose is
the uncontested and much decorated diva of Calypso music. With more than 800
recorded songs, she continues to be a pioneer and champion of women’s rights,
as she travels the world making music. French-Cameroonian filmmaker Pascale
Obolo spends four years with Calypso Rose on a very personal journey. Traveling
to Paris, New York, Trinidad and Tobago and to her ancestral home in Africa, we
learn more about Calypso Rose in each place, and the many faces and facets of
her life. The daughter of an illiterate Trinidadian fisherman,

Calypso Rose was one
of ten children, who at the age of nine was sent to live with relatives in
Tobago. At 15 she wrote her first song and launched a career that took her to
the top of the male-dominated calypso world. This creative film is not only
about memory and the exchange and discovery of world cultures, but also about the
journey of a remarkable woman, an Afro-Caribbean soul and an exemplary artist.

For
marketers who wish to reach the lucrative youth market, the relatively
uncluttered medium of the school environment represents the final frontier --
access to a captive audience of millions of students. Meanwhile dwindling
federal, state, and local funding for education has left many schools
vulnerable to the advertiser's pitch. As a result, commercialism has steadily
increased in America's public schools in recent years, often with little or no
public awareness.

Like no other film before,China
Blueis a powerful and
poignant journey into the harsh world of sweatshop workers. Shot clandestinely,
this is a deep-access account of what both China and the international
retailers don't want us to see: how the clothes we buy are actually made.

Following a pair of denim jeans from birth to sale,China
Bluelinks the power of the
U.S. consumer market to the daily lives of a Chinese factory owner and two
teenaged female factory workers. Filmed both in the factory and in the workers'
faraway village, this documentary provides a rare, human glimpse at China's
rapid transformation into a free market society.

China Blueis the second film in Micha X. Peled'sGlobalization Trilogy.Store
Wars: When Wal-Mart Comes to Townfocuses
on consumption in the U.S., andChina Blueinvestigates the manufacturing of the
clothes we all consume.Bitter Seedslooks at the raw materials. It goes to
India and follows the farmers growing the cotton exported to China's garment
factories to be used for the clothes sold in the West. Each film explores a
deeper layer of the production-consumption chain.

Chisholm '72: Unbought and Unbossed (#WS-55)

A film by Shola
Lynch, 2004, 77 mins. U.S. English.

Following Chisholm from her own announcement of her candidacy through
her historic speech in Miami at the Democratic National Convention, the story
is a fight for inclusion. Shunned by the political establishment and the media,
this longtime champion of marginalized Americans asked for support from people
of color, women, gays, and young people newly empowered to vote at the age of
18. Chisholm's bid for an equal place on the presidential dais generated
strong, even racist opposition. Yet her challenge to the status quo and her
message about exercising the right to vote struck many as progressive and
positive. Period footage and music, interviews with supporters, opponents,
observers, and Chisholm's own commentary all illuminate her groundbreaking
initiative, as well as political and social currents still very much alive
today.

Recalling a watershed event in US politics, this compelling documentary
takes an in-depth look at the 1972 presidential campaign of Shirley Chisholm,
the first black woman elected to Congress and the first to seek nomination for
the highest office in the land.

Narrated by Ed Asner and featuring interviews with media analysts and cultural historians, this documentary examines the patterns inherent in TV's disturbing depictions of working class people as either clowns or social deviants -- stereotypical portrayals that reinforce the myth of meritocracy. Class Dismissed breaks important new ground in exploring the ways in which race, gender, and sexuality intersect with class, offering a more complex reading of television's often one-dimensional representations.

The video also links television portrayals to negative cultural attitudes and public policies that directly affect the lives of working class people. "Class Dismissed dares to open our eyes to television's role in disappearing class from the American consciousness. The carefully crafted interviews set against humorous clips show how stereotypes of working-class buffoons distance us from the reality of corporate greed. Class Dismissed drives home the connections between class, gender and race to ongoing systems of inequality and reminds viewers of the importance of raising class consciousness if we are to succeed in forging meaningful models of citizenship in the future.”- Elizabeth L. Krause | Assistant Professor of Anthropology | University of Massachusetts Amherst.

The Coat Hanger
Project (#WS-7)Directed by Angie Young, 2008. U.S.

Since the passage
of Roe V. Wade in 1973, anti-choice forces in the U.S. have been making it
their mission to dismantle women's reproductive freedom. They have come
together, brilliantly strategized, pooled their resources, and slowly but
steadily they have been implementing their attack. Their weapons: money, the
legal system, the government, the media, the church, and - scariest of all -
you.

The Coat Hanger Project features interviews with Loretta Ross (founding member
of the reproductive justice movement), Heather Booth (founding member of Jane,
the underground pre-Roe abortion service in Chicago, 1969-73), Dr. Mildred
Hanson (pre-Roe v. Wade abortion provider), Vicki Saporta (president and CEO of
the National Abortion Federation, Dr. Jeannie Ludlow (professor of women's
studies), as well as illegal abortion survivors, students, activists, scholars
and others.

Codes of Gender, The Identity and Performance in
Pop Culture (#WS-8)Directed by Sut Jhally,
2009. U.S. DVD, 73 mins. or abridged version 46 mins., edited for nudity and length.

The Codes of Gender applies the late sociologist Erving Goffman's groundbreaking
analysis of advertising to the contemporary commercial landscape, showing how
one of American popular culture's most influential forms communicates normative
ideas about masculinity and femininity. In striking visual detail, The Codes of
Gender explores Goffman's central claim that gender ideals are the result of
ritualized cultural performance, uncovering a remarkable pattern of masculine
and feminine displays and poses.
Sections: Sex and Gender | The Feminine Touch | The
Ritualization of Subordination | Licensed Withdrawal | Infantilization | The
Codes of Masculinity | Trapped in the Code | History, Power, and GenderViewer Discretion Advisory: This program
contains violence, nudity, and sexual themes.

Consuming Kids
throws desperately needed light on the practices of a relentless multi-billion
dollar marketing machine that now sells kids and their parents everything from
junk food and violent video games to bogus educational products and the family
car.

Drawing on the insights
of health care professionals, children's advocates, and industry insiders, the
film focuses on the explosive growth of child marketing in the wake of
deregulation, showing how youth marketers have used the latest advances in
psychology, anthropology, and neuroscience to transform American children into
one of the most powerful and profitable consumer demographics in the world.

Crash(HRC #WS-49)Directed
by Paul Haggis, 2004, 112 mins. U.S.

This compelling feature-film urban thriller tracks the volatile
intersection of a multi-ethnic cast of characters struggling to overcome their
fears as they careen in and out of one another's lives. In the gray area
between black and white, victim and aggressor, during the next 36 hours, they
will all collide.

How did date rape shift from a "shockingly frequent...
outrage," as Newsweek once called it, to a controversy over "crying
rape," as New York magazine later labeled it? Susan Faludi, bell hooks,
Mary Koss, Katha Pollitt, Neil Malamuth, and others, analyze a classical case
study in media "backlash." By the early 1990s, solid research and
over-whelming evidence had prompted a growing awareness of the epidemic nature
of date rape, especially on college campuses. But, starting in 1993, the media
used the anecdotal comments of one young woman, Katie Roiphe, to undermine
efforts to stop this continuing crime against women. How did this happen?
Academy Award Winning- screenwriter Callie Khouri (Thelma & Louise) hosts a
lively discussion by researchers, journalists, and authors.

Sections: Conservative Origins | Creation of a Controversy | "Bad
Sex?" | The Attack on Mary Koss | The Research Record | The Research on
Males | Male Hysteria & the Backlash |Effects of the Date Rape Backlash.

Just a few years after the subprime mortgage
crisis, there are ominous signs that the student loan market is on the verge of
collapsing, yet another casualty of predatory lending practices. Default brings
this perilous situation into sharp relief, chronicling the stories of borrowers
who find themselves in the paralyzing predicament of having to repay far more
than what they borrowed -- with no bankruptcy protection, and no recourse under
the law. The result is at once an accessible analysis of a mounting economic
crisis, and a cautionary tale for students.

Dreamworlds 3(Unabridged): Desire, Sex &
Power in Music Video (#WS-11)Written, Narrated, and
Edited by Sut Jhally, 2007. 60 mins. U.S. Also available in an abridged version.

Dreamworlds 3, the highly anticipated update of Sut Jhally's
groundbreaking Dreamworlds 2 (1995), examines the stories contemporary music
videos tell about girls and women, and encourages viewers to consider how these
narratives shape individual and cultural attitudes about sexuality.
Illustrated with hundreds of up-to-date images, Dreamworlds
3 offers a unique and powerful tool for understanding both the continuing
influence of music videos and how pop culture more generally filters the
identities of young men and women through a dangerously narrow set of myths
about sexuality and gender. In doing so, it inspires viewers to reflect
critically on images that they might otherwise take for granted.
Sections: Introduction | Techniques of Storytelling |
Constructing Femininity | The Pornographic Imagination | Ways of Looking |
Female Artists: Trapped in the Pornographic Gaze | Masculinity & ControlViewer Discretion Advised: Contains
Sexual Imagery

To those who claim
that feminism has had its day, Barnard Center For Research on Women offers a
brief, fascinating, and irrefutable rebuttal. In
Feminism: Controversies, Challenges, Actions, filmmaker Rebecca Haimowitz
interviews some of the most exciting voices in feminist scholarship and
activism. Commissioned in 2005 to reflect the first 30 years of the Scholar
& Feminist conference, this half-hour documentary asks feminists across
generations about past controversies, current challenges, and future actions of
a feminist movement that remains as vibrant as it is varied.

The struggle for Muslim women’s emancipation is often portrayed stereotypically as a showdown between Western and Islamic values, but Arab feminism has existed for more than a century. This groundbreaking documentary recounts Arab feminism’s largely unknown story, from its taboo-shattering birth in Egypt by feminist pioneers up through viral Internet campaigns by today’s tech-savvy young activists during the Arab Spring. Moving from Tunisia to Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia, filmmaker and author Feriel Ben Mahmoud tracks the progress of Arab women in their long march to assert their full rights and achieve empowerment. Featuring previously unreleased archival footage and exclusive multi-generational interviews, FEMINISM INSHALLAH is an indispensable resource for Women’s Studies, Global Feminism, Middle East and Islamic Studies.

Social and developmental
psychologist and author Lynn Phillips explores the line between consent and
coercion in this thought-provoking look at popular culture and the ways real
girls and women navigate their heterosexual relationships and hookups.

Featuring dramatizations of interviews that Phillips conducted with hundreds of
young women, the film examines how the wider culture's frequently contradictory
messages about pleasure, danger, and agency.

FREEDOM RIDERS is the powerful harrowing and ultimately inspirational story of six months in 1961 that changed America forever. From May until November 1961, more than 400 black and white Americans risked their lives—and many endured savage beatings and imprisonment—for simply traveling together on buses and trains as they journeyed through the Deep South. Deliberately violating Jim Crow laws, the Freedom Riders met with bitter racism and mob violence along the way, sorely testing their belief in nonviolent activism.

From award-winning filmmaker Stanley Nelson (Wounded Knee, Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple, The Murder of Emmett Till) FREEDOM RIDERS features testimony from a fascinating cast of central characters: the Riders themselves, state and federal government officials, and journalists who witnessed the Rides firsthand. The two-hour documentary is based on Raymond Arsenault's book Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice.

Says filmmaker Stanley Nelson, "The lesson of the Freedom Rides is that great change can come from a few small steps taken by courageous people. And that sometimes to do any great thing, it's important that we step out alone."

Further Off the
Straight and Narrow, New Gay Visibility on Television, 1998-2006 (#WS-13)

Director:
Katherine Sender. 2012. 52 mins. U.S.

This important new documentary picks up where Off the Straight
& Narrow: Gays, Lesbians, Bisexuals & Television (1998) left off. Since
that video's release in the late 90s, which coincided with the last episode of
the popular program Ellen, there has been a marked increase in the presence of
GLBT characters on television. Against the backdrop of political and social
issues affecting the GLBT community, such as gay marriage and AIDS.

Further Off
the Straight & Narrow takes a close look at sitcoms, reality shows, and
premium cable programming as it explores how representations of GLBT characters
have become more complex and varied in recent years.
Sections: Introduction | Going Mainstream: Network Narratives | Mighty Real:
Gays and Lesbians in Non-Fiction TV | A Piece of the Pie: Segmenting Audiences
| glbT: New Transgender Visibility | Here & Queer: Gay Television in
Context Viewer Discretion Advised: Contains
Sexual Imagery

Video and computer games represent a $6 billion a year industry. One out of
every ten households in American owns a Sony Playstation. Children who own
video game equipment play an average of ten hours per week. And yet, despite
capturing the attention of millions of children worldwide, video games remain
one of the least scrutinized cultural industries.

Game Over is the first educational documentary to address the fastest
growing segment of the media through engaging questions of gender, race and
violence. Game Over offers a refreshing dialogue about the complex and
controversial topic of video game violence, and is designed to encourage high
school and college students to think critically about the video games they
play. Sections: Intro | Video Games: The New Media | Play Like a Man: Video
Games and Masculinity | Buxom Babes: The Female Heroine | Narrow Vision: Race
in Video Games | Video Game Violence | Sim Violence: Teaching Kids to Kill |
Conclusion: Virtual Violence

The Gender Chip Project(#WS-82)A film by Helen DeMichiel. 2005. 54 mins. U.S.

Essential viewing for students, educators, counselors, policy makers and parents, THE GENDER CHIP PROJECT is being hailed as an important resource for addressing the disparity of representation of women in the science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields. Although women comprise the majority of undergraduates in America, only 20 percent are earning degrees in engineering and computer science. With statistics like these—and controversies such as the firestorm created when a prominent university president suggested women lack innate abilities in math and science—it’s clear that the road to success in the high-stakes STEM professions is not an easy one for young women.

Despite the
achievements of the women's movement over the past four decades, misogyny
remains a persistent force in American culture. In this important documentary,
Thomas Keith, professor of philosophy at California State University-Long
Beach, looks specifically at misogyny and sexism in mainstream American media,
exploring how negative definitions of femininity and hateful attitudes toward
women get constructed and perpetuated at the very heart of our popular culture.
The film tracks the destructive dynamics of misogyny across
a broad and disturbing range of media phenomena: including the
hyper-sexualization of commercial products aimed at girls, the explosion of
violence in video games aimed at boys, the near-hysterical sexist rants of
hip-hop artists and talk radio shock jocks, and the harsh, patronizing
caricatures of femininity and feminism that reverberate throughout the
mainstream of American popular culture.

Girl Rising ( #WS-96)

Directed by Richard Robbins. 2013, 101 mins. U.S. subtitled

The movie tells the stories of nine girls from different parts of the world who face arranged marriages, child slavery, and other heartbreaking injustices. Despite these obstacles, the brave girls offer hope and inspiration. By getting an education, they're able to break barriers and create change.

Each girl's story was written by a renowned writer from her native country.

Girl Rising is the first project to debut under the new CNN Films banner, featuring narration by actresses Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Kerry Washington, and Selena Gomez.

In 2008, eighteen
high school girls from Gloucester, Massachusetts were accused of making a pact
to become pregnant. The mainstream media perpetuated and sensationalized the
story, with reporters flying in from as far away as Australia, the UK, and
Brazil. The Gloucester 18 looks behind all the headlines and hype to tell the
real stories of these girls, and in the process puts a human face on a
startling statistic: that the United States has the highest teen pregnancy rate
in the developed world.

The
filmmakers draw on interviews with the girls, their families, high school
counselors, physicians, and media personalities to unpack what really happened,
and explore the complicated emotional and practical challenges faced by teens
on the brink of motherhood. An excellent resource for high school health
classes, teen pregnancy prevention programs, and courses in psychology,
adolescent development, public health, and education

When news spread in 2008 that
eighteen high school girls from Gloucester, Massachusetts, had made a pact with
one another to become pregnant, it touched off an international firestorm. But
in the tabloid-driven frenzy of moral outrage and speculation that followed,
the real story went missing. The Gloucester 18 tells that story.

Drawing on interviews
with the girls involved, high school counselors, health experts, and doctors,
the film puts a human face on a stunning fact: that the U.S. has the highest
teen pregnancy rate in the developed world. An excellent resource for high
school health classes, teen pregnancy prevention programs, and courses in
psychology, public health, and media studies.

The sublime Barbara Sukowa reteams with director Margarethe von Trotta (Vision, Rosa Luxemburg) for her brilliant new biopic of influential German-Jewish philosopher and political theorist Hannah Arendt. Arendt's reporting on the 1961 trial of ex-Nazi Adolf Eichmann in The New Yorker-controversial both for her portrayal of Eichmann and the Jewish councils-introduced her now-famous concept of the "Banality of Evil." Using footage from the actual Eichmann trial and weaving a narrative that spans three countries, Von Trotta beautifully turns the often invisible passion of thought into immersive, dramatic cinema.

An Official Selection at the Toronto International and New York Jewish Film Festivals, Hannah Arendt also co-stars Klaus Pohl as philosopher Martin Heidegger, Nicolas Woodeson as New Yorker editor William Shawn, and two-time Oscar Nominee Janet McTeer (Albert Nobbs) as novelist Mary McCarthy. (c) Zeitgeist.

The documentary film Heist: Who Stole the American Dream? reveals how American corporations orchestrated the dismantling of middle-class prosperity through rampant deregulation, the outsourcing of jobs, and tax policies favoring businesses and the wealthy. The collapse of the U.S. economy is the result of conscious choices made over thirty five years by a small group: leaders of corporations and their elected allies, and the biggest lobbying interest in Washington, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. To these individuals, the collapse is not a catastrophe, but rather the planned outcome of their long, patient work. For the rest of the country, it is merely the biggest heist in American history.

Distinguished historian John H. Bracey Jr. offers a provocative analysis of the devastating economic, political, and social effects of racism on white Americans. In a departure from analyses of racism that have focused primarily on white power and privilege, Bracey trains his focus on the high price that white people, especially working class whites, have paid for more than two centuries of divisive race-based policies and attitudes. Whether he's discussing the pivotal role slavery played in the war for independence, the two million white Americans who died in a civil war fought over the question of slavery, or how business owners took advantage of the segregation of America's first labor unions and used low-wage, non-unionized black workers to undercut the bargaining power of white workers, Bracey's central point is that failing to acknowledge the centrality of race, and racism, to the American project not only minimizes the suffering of black people, but also blinds us to how white people have been harmed as well.

How To Lose Your Virginity(#WS-94)

A film by Therese Schecter. 2013. 66 mins. U.S.

Female virginity. The US government has spent 1.5 billion dollars promoting it. It has fetched $750,000 at auction. There is no official medical definition for it. And 50 years after the sexual revolution, it continues to define young women’s morality and self-worth. This hilarious, eye-opening, occasionally alarming documentary uses the filmmaker’s own path out of virginity to explore its continuing value in our otherwise hypersexualized society. Layering vérité interviews and vintage sex-ed films with candid self-reflection and wry narration, Shechter reveals myths, dogmas and misconceptions behind this "precious gift." Sex educators, porn producers, abstinence advocates, and outspoken teens share their own stories of having - or not having - sex.

"Shechter covers all of her bases, and leaves no sexual stone unturned...Her ability to teach, dismantle, expose and explore is remarkable."

INDIA’S DAUGHTER is the powerful story of the 2012, brutal gang rape on a Delhi bus of a 23 year old medical student, who later died from her injuries. In 2012, it made international headlines and ignited protests by women in India and around the world. This month India’s government banned the film while the BBC moved their planned broadcast up by days and ignited a new controversy. BAFTA winning filmmaker Leslee Udwin, herself a victim of rape, went to India inspired by the protests against sexual assault. With an all Indian crew, Udwin got exclusive, first time on camera interviews with the rapists and defense attorney, none of whom express remorse. The defense attorney goes even further, stating that “immodest” women deserve what happens to them. An impassioned plea for change, INDIA’S DAUGHTER pays tribute to a remarkable and inspiring young woman and explores the compelling human stories behind the incident and the political ramifications throughout India. But beyond India, the film lays bare the way in which societies and their patriarchal values have spawned such acts of violence globally.

Winner of Audience Award, Biografilm, Bologna.

"This film does what the politicians should be doing… this documentary’s determination to shed light on the country’s rape crisis should inspire change." -The Guardian

Inequality For All (#WS-110)Director: Jacob Kornbluth 2015, 89 mins. U.S.

A documentary that follows former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich as he looks to raise awareness of the country's widening economic gap. With Robert Reich, Lily Tomlin, Candace Bergen.

The Invisible War (#WS-67)

Directed by Kirby Dick,
2012. 97 mins. U.S.

The Invisible War
features interviews with veterans from multiple branches of the United States
Armed Forces who recount the events surrounding their assaults. Their stories
show many common themes, such as the lack of recourse to an impartial justice
system, reprisals against survivors instead of against perpetrators, the
absence of adequate emotional and physical care for survivors, the unhindered
advancement of perpetrators' careers, and the forced expulsion of survivors
from service.
Interspersed with these first person testimonies are
interviews with advocates, journalists, mental health professionals, active
duty and retired generals, Department of Defense officials, and members of the
military justice system. The film also includes footage, often shot by the
veterans themselves, which documents their lives and continuing struggles in
the aftermath of their assaults.
In the film's most prominent narrative, Coast Guard veteran
Seaman Kori Cioca struggles to earn benefits from the Department of
Veterans Affairs to pay for the many medical difficulties that have resulted
from her rape. With the help of attorney Susan L. Burke, Cioca, along
with other survivors featured in the film, brings a civil suit against the
Department of Defense alleging a failure to adequately address sexual assault
within the military.

Iron
Jawed Angels (#WS-21)

Directed by Katja Von Garnier, 2004. 125 mins. U.S.

Katja von Garnier's sexy, exuberant tour de force tells the amazing story of
fierce young suffragettes fighting for a Constitutional amendment guaranteeing
women the right to vote. Headlining the stellar cast are Hilary Swank as
brainy, charismatic Alice Paul, and Frances O'Conner as smart, cheeky Alice
Burns - real-life women who mobilized a defiant vanguard that gave congress a
run for its money. In 1912, Paul and Burns take the reins of the
National American Women's Suffrage Association's (NAWSA) committee in
Washington, D.C., where they organize a landmark parade on President Wilson's
inauguration day. The march is violently disrupted by men on the sidelines.
Many more ordeals follow, including opposition from the more conservative NAWSA
old guard (led by a deliciously persnickety Anjelica Huston), and grisly
sentences as political prisoners.

Firing up an effusive contemporary pop score, a sweeping, restless
camera, and a vibrant palette to match the suffragettes’ radiant dynamism, von
Garnier goes into high gear to tell a classic American tale of struggle for
justice. The film brims with issues still relevant today, as the plucky
warriors grapple with racism within the movement, friction between work and
relationships, and the implications of protesting a wartime president. A
formidable testament to the sacrifices and the blood shed for women's
enfranchisement, Iron Jawed Angels may just embarrass people into actually
going to the polls.

Filmmaker Katja von
Garnier is a graduate of the Academy for Film and Television in Munich. In
1993, she won the student Academy Award (R) for her film
"Abgeschminkt" ("Making up!), which went on to become a surprise
German box-office hit. In 1998, Garnier was recognized by "Variety"
for her debut feature film, "bandits" (1997), as one of the 10
independent directors to watch. In February 2002, Garnier's son, Merlin, was
born, and she made her first English-language film, "Iron Jawed
Angels".

This educational "kit" -- which includes a 15-minute video, a
discussion and resource guide, an informational poster, and colorful "Safe Space"
stickers -- is intended to help coaches/teachers, parents, and school
administrators educate students/athletes about the harmful effects of
homophobia and asks the question, "How can we make sure that people in
athletics are evaluated, not based on their sexual orientation or gender
expression, but on their individual character and accomplishments?" The
DVD includes the video and digital versions of the educational materials for
easy printing.

For years, there's been widespread speculation about the relationship between violent video games and violence in the real world. Joystick Warriors provides the clearest account yet of the latest research on this issue. Drawing on the insights of media scholars, military analysts, combat veterans, and gamers themselves, the film trains its sights on the wildly popular genre of first-person shooter games, exploring how the immersive experience they offer links up with the larger stories we tell ourselves as a culture about violence, militarism, guns, and manhood.

Along the way, it examines the game industry's longstanding working relationship with the U.S. military and the American gun industry, and offers a riveting examination of the games themselves -- showing how they work to sanitize, glamorize, and normalize violence while cultivating dangerously regressive attitudes and ideas about masculinity and militarism.

"As a media literacy educator, Joystick Warriors is a necessity for my classroom. Using powerful examples and expert analysis, the movie weaves through a detailed critical analysis of the videogame industry and their products." - Alexis Ladd | Instructor at Wheelock College | Co-founder of the Massachusetts Media Literacy Consortium

In this new, highly anticipated update of her pioneering Killing Us
Softly series, the first in more than a decade, Jean Kilbourne takes a fresh
look at how advertising traffics in distorted and destructive ideals of
femininity. The film marshals a range of new print and television
advertisements to lay bare a stunning pattern of damaging gender stereotypes --
images and messages that too often reinforce unrealistic, and unhealthy,
perceptions of beauty, perfection, and sexuality. By bringing Kilbourne's
groundbreaking analysis up to date, Killing Us Softly 4 stands to challenge a
new generation of students to take advertising seriously, and to think
critically about popular culture and its relationship to sexism, eating
disorders, and gender violence.

One hundred years ago, American teachers established the English-speaking
public school system of the Philippines. Now, in a striking turnabout, American
schools are recruiting Filipino teachers. THE LEARNING, from award-winning
filmmaker Ramona S. Diaz (IMELDA), is the story of four Filipina women who
reluctantly leave their families and schools to teach in Baltimore. With their
increased salaries, they hope to transform their families' lives back in their
impoverished country. This absorbing, beautifully crafted film follows these
teachers as they take their place on the frontline of the No Child Left Behind
Act.
Across the school year's changing seasons, the film chronicles the sacrifices
they make as they try to maintain a long-distance relationship with their
children and families, and begin a new one with the mostly African-American
students whose schooling is now entrusted to them. Their story is intensely
personal, as each woman deals with the implications of her decision to come to
the US, and fundamentally public, as they become part of the machinery of
American education reform policy.

A parallel, lesbian-feminist revolution was born out of the women’s and civil rights movements of the 60’s and 70’s. Filmmaker Myriam Fougère’s takes us on a road trip through the United States and Canada as she revisits the activists of the time who sparked this revolution to define their own culture. As active second-wave feminists, many lesbian women began to recognize that their sexual identity was not acknowledged or embraced by the traditional women’s movement. These artists, musicians, philosophers, and writers sought to establish communities centered exclusively on women where patriarchy simply did not exist. Women-only communities began to flourish in North America and around the world, resulting in a rich and vibrant culture that inspired important lesbian art, literature, and music. Told through photographs, archival footage, and contemporary interviews, Fougère’s film serves not only as a testament to the politics of the era, but also as a living yearbook and virtual reunion of these remarkable women, who laid the groundwork for generations to come.

The
Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter (#WS-22)Produced and Directed by Connie Field, 1981. 65 mins. Australia

With the U.S. entry into World War II
notions of what was proper work for women changed overnight. Thousands of poster
and billboards appeared calling on women to "Do The Job He Left
Behind," Rosie the Riveter was born - the symbol of working women during
World War II. When the war was over, Rosie wanted to stay. But neither the
structure of the American economy nor the dominant view of women's place in
society sustained such hope.

Praise for the Film: 15 International Awards for Best
Documentary, National Film Registry of the Library of Congress British Academy
Award Nominee, "One of the ten best films of the year.", Village
Voice "The best film on working women I have seen.", Molly Haskell,
MS. Magazine "Warm, engaging, and poignant. The film has that Studs
Terkel-like ability to discover the extraordinary in seemingly ordinary people.
Terrific." Los Angeles Times, "An unusually tough-minded and
intelligent documentary." J. Hoberman, Village Voice.

The Line (#WS-60) Directed &
Produced by Nancy Schwartzman, 2010. 24 mins., U.S.

A young
woman is raped when a one-night stand far from home goes terribly wrong. In the
aftermath, as she struggles to make sense of what happened, she decides to make
a film about the relationship between her own experience and the tangle of
political, legal, and cultural questions that surround issues of sex and
consent. Using a hidden camera, filmmaker Nancy Schwartzman goes head-to-head
with the man who assaulted her, recording their conversation in an attempt to
move through the trauma of her experience and achieve a better understanding of
the sometimes ambiguous line between consent and coercion.
The result is a
powerful documentary about the terrible personal reality of rape and sexual
violence -- and the more complicated and ambivalent ways sexual assault is
often framed and understood in the wider culture. Also includes three
additional short features -- ideal for classroom use -- that take a closer look
at Gerbner's analysis and the Mean World Syndrome.

Made
in India: A Film About Surrogacy (#WS-70)

Directed
by Rebecca Haimowitz & Vaishali Sinha, 2010. 97 mins. U.S., Hindi/English, subtitled.
In San Antonio, Lisa and Brian Switzer risk their savings with a Medical
Tourism company promising them an affordable solution after seven years of
infertility. Halfway around the world in Mumbai, 27-year-old Aasia Khan, mother
of three, contracts with a fertility clinic to be implanted with the Texas
couple’s embryos. MADE IN INDIA, about real people involved in international
surrogacy, follows the Switzers and Aasia through every stage of the
process.

With its dual focus, this emotionally charged, thoroughly
absorbing film charts obstacles faced by the Switzers and presents intimate
insights into Aasia’s circumstances and motivation. As their stories become
increasingly intertwined, the bigger picture behind offshore outsourcing of
pregnancies—a booming, unregulated reproductive industry valued at $450 million
in India alone—begins to emerge. So do revealing questions about international
surrogacy’s legal and ethical implications, global corporate practices, human
and reproductive rights, and commodification of the body.

MAKERS: Women Who Make America tells the remarkable story of the most sweeping social revolution in American history, as women have asserted their rights to a full and fair share of political power, economic opportunity, and personal autonomy. It’s a revolution that has unfolded in public and private, in courts and Congress, in the boardroom and the bedroom, changing not only what the world expects from women, but what women expect from themselves.

MAKERS brings this story to life with priceless archival treasures and poignant, often funny interviews with those who led the fight, those who opposed it, and those first generations to benefit from its success. Trailblazing women like Hillary Rodham Clinton, Ellen DeGeneres and Oprah Winfrey share their memories, as do countless women who challenged the status quo in industries from coal-mining to medicine. Makers captures with music, humor, and the voices of the women who lived through these turbulent times the dizzying joy, aching frustration and ultimate triumph of a movement that turned America upside-down.

This is the story of Ludovic, a little
girl born in a little boy's body. For him, nothing is more natural than to
change his gender. As a hopeful and sensitive child, he truly believes that a
miracle is going to happen. He will be a girl, no doubt about it, and he's in love
with Jerome, his schoolmate, and son of his father's colleague. Initially a
source of amusement, an outrage begins in their suburb when the two boys are
discovered pretending to get married. The family begins to realize with horror
that his desire to be a girl isn't just a little boy's fantasy. They try to
make him change his mind, to no avail. The situation turns into a real-life
drama of intense reactions from neighbors, friends, and teachers, resulting in
a profoundly optimistic ending.

Ma Vie en Rose" is "the age-old story of sidelong glances,
disapproving neighbors, gossip, and being ashamed of what is different,"
says first-time feature director Alain Berliner. Played with an even-keeled,
matter-of-fact charm by newcomer George du Fresne, Ludovic is a boy who knows
he is a girl and puts his trust in God that this error in his given gender will
be righted. Full of hope and raised on fairytales, he believes that a
supernatural force will make his dearest wish come true: to be back in the body
of the girl that he is meant to be.

The Mean World Syndrome, based on the ground-breaking work of media scholar George Gerbner, urges us to think about media effects in more nuanced ways. Ranging from Hollywood movies and prime-time dramas to reality programming and the local news, the film examines how media violence forms a pervasive cultural environment that cultivates in heavy viewers, especially, a heightened state of insecurity, exaggerated perceptions of risk and danger, and a fear-driven propensity for hard-line political solutions to social problems. A provocative and accessible introduction to cultivation analysis, media effects research, and the subject of media influence and media violence more generally.1. Media as Storytellers: "Nothing to Tell but a lot to Sell" -- Explores the significance of commercial media eclipsing religion and art as the great storyteller of our time. (7:32) 2. A Mean World Case Study: Child Abductions -- Provides an in-depth look at how media coverage of child abductions has fed parental anxieties out of proportion with statistical reality. (4:17) 3. Further Effects of the Mean World Syndrome: Desensitization & Acceleration -- Examines how heavy exposure to media violence normalizes violence, numbing some people to real-world violence even as it whets the appetite in others for ever-higher doses.

This film is based on the late George Gerbner's groundbreaking analysis of media influence and media violence. Featuring George Gerbner and Michael Morgan. For years, debates have raged among scholars, politicians, and concerned parents about the effects of media violence on viewers. Too often these debates have descended into simplistic battles between those who claim that media messages directly cause violence and those who argue that activists exaggerate the impact of media exposure altogether.

WS#75 Store Wars: When Wal-Mart Comes to Town Part I (of 3) from The Globalization Trilogy

WS #76 Hannah Arendt

WS #77 Slavery by Another Name

WS #78 Freedom Riders: Threatened. Attacked. Jailed.

WS #79 The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975

WS #80 Thurgood Marshall

WS #81 Mirrors of Privilege: Making Whiteness Visible

WS #82 The Gender Chip Project

WS #83 Reflections Unheard: Black Women in civil Rights

WS #84 Makers: Women Who Make America

WS #85 Women, War, and Peace

WS #86 Rape In The Fields

WS #87 Tough Guise II

WS #88 Class Dismissed

WS #89 Joystick Warriors

WS #90 #ReGENERATION

WS #91 Question One

WS #92 Boy I Am

WS #93 How To Lose Your Virginity

WS #94 Red Wedding

WS #95 Girl Rising

WS #96 Poor Kids

WS #97 Top Secret Rosies

WS #98 Senorita Extraviada

WS #99 Opium Brides

WS #100 Pornland

WS #101 Brand New You: Makeover Television and the American Dream

WS #102 bell hooks: Cultural Criticism

WS #103 Alice Walker: Beauty in Truth

WS #104 India's Daughter

WS #105 Post-Traumatic Slave Syndrome

WS# 106 The Pornography of Everyday Life

WS# 107 How Racism Harms White Americans

WS# 108 RACE: The Power of an Illusion

WS# 109 HEIST: Who Stole the American Dream

WS# 110 Inequality For All

WS# 111 The Empathy Gap: Masculinity and the Courage to Change

WS # 112 Guyland: Where Boys Become Men

WS # 113 Brand New You: Makeover Television and the American Dream

WS # 114 The Illusionists: A film about the globalization of beauty

(Continued from Column One)

Michael Kimmel: On Gender - Mars, Venus or Planet Earth? Men & Women in a New Millenium (#WS-26)

Produced by Sut Jhally. 2008. 54 mins. U.S. English subtitles

We've heard again and again that men and women are engaged in a "battle of the sexes," that we're so differently wired and so foreign to each other that we might as well come from different planets. In this powerful new lecture, renowned speaker and bestselling author Michael Kimmel (The Gendered Society, Manhood in America) turns this conventional wisdom on its head. With clarity and humor, Kimmel moves beyond the popular inter-planetary notion that "men are from Mars and women are from Venus" to advance a decidedly more earth-bound and inter-connected view of the things men and women have in common. This is an accessible and entertaining introduction to gender politics and gender theory - as intellectually informative as it is inspiring, and suited for use across a range of disciplines and courses.

Mickey Mouse Monopoly - Disney, Childhood & Corporate Power (#WS-27)

Directed by Miguel Picker, 2001. 52 mins. U.S. English subtitles

The Disney Company's massive success in the 20th century is based on creating an image of innocence, magic and fun. Its animated films in particular are almost universally lauded as wholesome family entertainment, enjoying massive popularity among children and endorsement from parents and teachers. Mike Mouse Monopoly takes a close and critical look at the world these films create and the stories they tell about race, gender and class and reaches disturbing conclusions about the values propagated under the guise of innocence and fun. This daring new video insightfully analyzes Disney's cultural pedagogy, examines its corporate power, and explores its vast influence on our global culture. Including interviews with cultural critics, media scholars, child psychologists, kindergarten teachers, multicultural educators, college students and children, Mickey Mouse Monopoly will provoke audiences to confront comfortable assumptions about an American institution that is virtually synonymous with childhood pleasure. Praise for the Film: "A daring and disturbing look at Disney's power to shape mass culture. Anyone who cares about children and commercial culture should see it, but get ready for the urge to cover your eyes as Mickey Mouse Monopoly chips away at one of America's favorite icons and leaves you with nothing but the ugly truth."

The Middle of Everywhere, The Abortion Debate from America's Heartland (#WS-56)

A film by Rebecca Lee & Jasper Malmberg, 2008. 52 mins. US/France

South Dakota is America’s heartland—waving cornfields, hard-working farmers, family values and a population of 750,000, the majority of whom identify as conservative and anti-abortion. Native daughter Rebecca Lee returns home in 2006 on the brink of a historic state vote: House Bill 1215 could make South Dakota the first state to outlaw most abortions since Roe vs. Wade passed almost 30 years earlier. In The Middle of Everywhere, Lee discovers the debate to be complex, with both sides claiming compassion for women and the same desire to stop the need for abortion.

DVD extras include an interview with Noam Chomsky about how and why he accepted an interview with Hustler magazine in 2004, and his candid view on pornography.

Interviews with transgender, intersexual and bisexual men and women -- as well as scientific and academic experts -- shed light on the difficulties of people whose gender may fall somewhere in between male and female. Filmed all over the world, Middle Sexes examines how different cultures handle this sensitive issue. Author Gore Vidal narrates this thought-provoking documentary that explores the controversial subject of gender identity.

Featuring Gore Vidal, Calpernia Addams, and Milton Diamond.

Mirrors of Privilege: Making Whiteness Visible(#WS-81)

Director/Producer: Shakti Butler. 2006. 50 min. U.S.

This documentary Film is about the battle for same-sex marriage in America. On May 6th, 2009 Maine became the first state in this country to legislatively grant same-sex couples the right to marry. Seven months later, on November 3rd 2009 Maine reversed, becoming the thirty-first state in USA to say 'no' to gay and lesbian marriage. Filmed from within both campaigns, 'Question One' chronicles the fierce and emotional battle that took place in Maine during that time, a battle whose political symbolism is a bellwether for the greater ideological battlefield in American politics.coming soon

This film advances the argument that with transformative learning, a dialogue for learning, changing, healing, and undoing race-based oppression can begin. It features the experiences and stories of White women and men who are social justice advocates. They have worked to gain insight into what it means, as White people, to challenge notions of race, racism, culture and White identity development in the United States. Their shared reflections speak to the denial, defensiveness, guilt, fear and shame often related to these issues and show how these responses can be replaced with solid commitments towards racial justice.

Mirrors of Privilege helped 1300 teachers in our districts to move forward in their journey to cultural competence.” – Gerald Denman, Executive Director of Diversity Affairs, Washington State School District.

Miss Representation (#WS-68)

Written and directed by Jennifer Siebel Newsom, 2011. 90 mins. U.S.

Like drawing back a curtain to let bright light stream in, Miss Representation uncovers a glaring reality we live with every day but fail to see. Written and directed by Jennifer Siebel Newsom, the film exposes how mainstream media contribute to the under-representation of women in positions of power and influence in America. The film challenges the media’s limited and often disparaging portrayals of women and girls, which make it difficult for women to achieve leadership positions and for the average woman to feel herself as powerful. In a society where media is the most persuasive force shaping cultural norms, the collective message that our young women and men overwhelmingly receive is that a woman’s value and power lie in her youth, beauty, and sexuality, and not in her capacity as a leader. While women have made great strides in leadership over the past few decades, the United States is still 90th in the world for women in national legislatures, women hold only 3% of clout positions in mainstream media, and 65% of women and girls have disordered eating behaviors. Stories from teenage girls and provocative interviews with politicians, journalists, entertainers, activists and academics, like Condoleezza Rice, Nancy Pelosi, Katie Couric, Rachel Maddow, Margaret Cho, Rosario Dawson and Gloria Steinem build momentum as Miss Representation accumulates startling facts and statistics that will leave the audience shaken and armed with a new perspective.

Thirteen years, two radical activist all-stars-one conversation. Internationally renowned scholar, professor and writer Angela Davis and 89-year-old grassroots organizer and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Yuri Kochiyama have spent over a decade conversing intimately about personal histories and influences that shaped them and their overlapping experiences.

MOUNTAINS THAT TAKE WING offers the gift of these two remarkable women’s lives, sharing the pair’s recorded exchanges in 1996 and 2008. The film’s unique format honors the scope and depth of their knowledge on topics ranging from Jim Crow laws and Japanese American internment camps, to Civil Rights, anti-war, women’s and gay liberation movements, to today’s campaigns for political prisoners and prison reform. Intercut with compelling period footage, Davis and Kochiyama’s cogent observations, keen analyses, and steadfast resolve to create a more equitable, humane world offer inspiring lessons in empowerment and community building for current and future generations.

NO! Confronting Sexual Assault in our Country (#WS-64)

Produced and Directed by Aishah Shahidah Simmons. 2006. 94 mins. U.S.

NO! provides a comprehensive lens through which to examines the impact of sexual violence on Black women and girls--calling to task in particular the behaviors and attitudes of Black men in reinforcing a cultural assault. NO! will undoubtedly be used to facilitate important conversations and support young women and men regardless of race as they learn to negotiate the challenging terrain of sexuality--without violence. NO! includes messages from violence prevention advocates as well as testimonials from survivors who defy victimization. Sociologists, historians, anthropologists and otherleading scholars provide and interdisciplinary context with which to examine sexual violence. A media literacy segment encourages viewer analysis of music videos and popular films. Bound to incite controversy, another chapter critiques the marked absence of gender analysis from civil rights politics and institutions--including the Black Power movement and the Black church. The chaptered DVD menu allows educators to highlight issues most relevant to their work. Praise for the Film: "If the Black community in the Americas and in the world would save itself, it must complete the work this film begins." Alice Walker, Pulitzer Prize Winning Author, "This ground-breaking work creates needed space to debate the issue of how violence against women harms black women and those who love them." Patricia Hill Collins, Author of Black Feminist Thought.

What Josey Aimes wants is a decent job so she can put food on the table and take care of her kids. What she gets is threatened, insulted, ogled, fondled, belittled, attcked and called filthy names. "Take it like a man," her callous male boss says. Instead, she takes it like a human being - and fights back.

Charlize Theron portrays Josey in North Country, the searing story of women who broke the gender barrier laboring in hazardous Minnesota iron mines.... and broke legal ground with the nations' first class-action sexual-harassment lawsuit.

Frances McDormand, Sissy Spacek, Woody Harrelson and Sean Bean star with Theron in this emotionally explosive tale of taking on the odds to achieve justice. Josie endures all manner of abuse while working as a miner. She filed and won the landmark 1984 lawsuit.

The North Country DVD includes a fascinating documentary entitled Stories from the North Country as well as additional scenes. Screenplay by Michael Seitzman.

Not Just A Game: Power, Politics & America Sports (#WS-31)

Directed by Jeremy Earp, 2010. 62 mins., U.S.

We've been told again and again that sports and politics don't mix, that games are just games and athletes should just "shut up and play." But according to Nation magazine sports editor Dave Zirin, this notion is just flat-out wrong. In Not Just a Game, the powerful new documentary based on his bestselling book The People's History of Sports in the United States, Zirin argues that far from providing merely escapist entertainment, American sports have long been at the center of some of the major political debates and struggles of our time. In a fascinating tour of the good, the bad, and the ugly of American sports culture, Zirin first traces how American sports have glamorized militarism, racism, sexism, and homophobia, then excavates a largely forgotten history of rebel athletes who stood up to power and fought for social justice beyond the field of play. The result is as deeply moving as it is exhilarating: nothing less than an alternative history of political struggle in the United States as seen through the games its people have played. Sections: Introduction | In the Arena | Like a Girl | Breaking the Color Barrier | The Courage of Athletes.

How are we to make sense of the transformation in gay representation-- from virtual invisibility before 1970 to the "gay chic" of today? Off the Straight & Narrow is the first in-depth documentary to cast a critical eye over the growth of gay images on TV. Leading media scholars provide the historical and cultural context for exploring the social implications of these new representations. Off the Straight & Narrow challenges viewers to consider the value and limits of available gay images: who is represented, what they get to say, and how people respond to them. The video is an invaluable tool for all educators interested in introducing students to issues of representation and diversity in the media.

Produced by Jamie Doran.This disc also contains The Secret War, Directed by Dan Edge.

A PBS Frontline Production. 2011-12. 60 minutes on 1 Disc. This DVD features subtitles in English.

Unexpected victims have been caught in the crossfire of attempts to eradicate Afghanistan's flourishing drug trade: young farm girls. Afghanistan produces more than 90 percent of the world's illicit opium. Opium farmers have long borrowed money from drug gangs, some with links to the Taliban, to subsidize their crops. Now, as the Afghan government destroys their livelihood in an eradication program, the farmers find themselves in a horrifying situation: repay their debts or give their daughters to drug-traffickers, often to be used for sex. Award-winning Afghan journalist Najibullah Quraishi reports on the harrowing story of families torn apart and the collateral damage of the counter-narcotics effort in Afghanistan.Also this hour, a timely encore broadcast: FRONTLINE crosses the border into Pakistan, where correspondents Stephen Grey and Martin Smith go inside "The Secret War" against the militants. They uncover evidence of covert support for elements of the Taliban by the Pakistani military and its intelligence service, the ISI. At a safe house not far from where Osama bin Laden was killed, they make contact with one mid-level Taliban commander who tells FRONTLINE, "If they really wanted to, [the Pakistanis] could arrest us all in an hour."

Playing Unfair - The Media Image of the Female Athlete (#WS-33)

Executive Producer Loretta Alper, Sut Jhally, 2002. 30 mins. U.S.

It has been over thirty years since Title IX legislation granted women equal playing time, but the male-dominated world of sports journalism has yet to catch up with the law. Coverage of women's sport lags far behind men's, and focuses on female athletes' femininity and sexuality over their achievements on the court and field. While female athleticism challenges gender norms, women athletes continue to be depicted in traditional roles that reaffirm their femininity - as wives and mothers or sex objects.

By comparison, male athletes are framed according to heroic masculine ideals that honor courage, strength, and endurance. Playing Unfair is the first video to critically examine the post-Title IX media landscape in terms of the representation of female athletes.

Directed, Produced, and Written by Jezza Newmann. 2012. 60 mins. A PBS Frontline Production. This DVD features subtitles in English.

These are hard times in the Quad Cities, a great American crossroads along the border of Iowa and Illinois, where the Mississippi River intersects Interstate 80. It's home to John Deere manufacturing and the nation's breadbasket. But it's also an area deeply scarred by the Recession.

FRONTLINE spent months following three young girls who are growing up against the backdrop of their families' struggles against financial ruin. The result is an intimate portrait of the economic crisis as it's rarely seen, through the eyes of children. At a time when one in five American kids lives below the poverty line, Poor Kids is an unflinching and revealing exploration of what poverty means to children, and to the country's future.

Pornography has moved from the margins of society into the very mainstream of American culture. From Internet pornography to MTV, pop culture industries bombard us with sexualized images of idealized women and men that jump off the screen and into our lives, shaping our gender identities, our body image, and especially our intimate relationships. In this multimedia presentation based on her acclaimed book, leading anti-porn feminist and scholar Gail Dines argues that the dominant images and stories disseminated by the multibillion-dollar pornography industry produce and reproduce a gender system that undermines equality and encourages violence against women. In direct opposition to claims that porn has delivered a more liberated, edgy sexuality, Dines reveals a mass-produced vision of sex that is profoundly sexist and destructive - a vision that limits our ability to create authentic, equal relationships free of violence and degradation.

An ideal introduction to the core arguments of the feminist anti-pornography movement.

"Dines understands both the economics and cultural power of the pornography industry perhaps better than anyone ever has."- Jackson Katz | Author of The Macho Paradox: Why Some Men Hurt Women and How All Men Can Help

This trenchant and provocative documentary essay will generate thought, analysis, and discussion in a wide variety of courses inwomen's and gender studies, psychology, sociology, and popularculture. It incorporates more than 200 powerful images fromadvertising, ancient myth, contemporary art, and popular culture todemonstrate how pornography (defined as the sexualized domination,degradation, and objectification of women and girls and social groupswho are put in the demeaned feminine role) is in reality a prevalentmainstream worldview.The film illustrates how the pornographic worldview is a generallyaccepted discourse, a habitual mode of thinking and acting thatunderpins not only sexism, but also racism, militarism, physicalabuse and torture, and the pillaging of the environment. As such,pornography appears not only in overt, "hard-core" forms, but also invirtually every aspect of everyday life.As the film illuminates, even though pornography is generally thoughtto be the opposite of religion, it actually is an irrational beliefsystem analogous to a religion. Like much patriarchal religioustradition, pornography is shown to be misogynistic and homophobic,and defines sex as "dirty" or debased and the opposite of the mind orspirit.Pornography is also shown to support the worst tendencies ofpatriarchal religions by appropriating previously sacred and potentimages of women, sex, goddesses, and the feminine principle,colloquially known as Mother Earth or Mother Nature, and thenritually profaning and defaming them. This works not only to demeanwomen but to justify and legitimize male divinity and worldlyauthority.The film concludes by suggesting alternatives and by illustrating howvisionary thinkers and artists resist the pornographic worldview byre-imagining and restoring respect to eroticism, female sexuality,and the female divine, and by calling for new understandings ofsexuality, nature, and society.The Pornography of Everyday Lifeis a superb and invigoratingcultural exploration that will stir thought and engender classroomdebate. It was written by and features Jane Caputi, Prof. of Women'sStudies at Florida Atlantic University, and produced by award-winningfilmmaker Susan Rosenkranz.

Post-Traumatic Slave Syndrome (#WS-105)

This DVD is a recording of a talk given by Dr. Joy DeGruy in Mount Vernon, NY. Dr. Joy DeGruy traces the history of African Americans from slavery through their virtual re-enslavement by Peonage, Black Codes, Convict Lease, and Jim Crow segregation to contemporary problems facing African americans today.

Price of Pleasure Pornography, Sexuality & Relationships(#WS-34)

Director & Producer: Chyng Sun & Miguel Picker, 2008. 55 mins. U.S.

Once relegated to the margins of society, pornography has emerged as one of the most visible and profitable sectors of the cultural industries, assuming an unprecedented role in the mainstream of our popular culture at the same time that its content has become more extreme and harsh, more overtly sexist and racist. This eye-opening and disturbing film tackles the complexity behind this seeming paradox, placing the voices of critics, producers, and performers alongside the observations of men and women as they candidly discuss the role pornography has played in shaping their sexual imaginations and relationships. Honest and non-judgmental, The Price of Pleasure moves beyond the liberal versus conservative debates so common in the culture to paint a myth-busting and nuanced portrait of how pleasure and pain, commerce and power, liberty and responsibility have become intertwined in the most intimate area of our lives.

An ideal tool for initiating classroom discussion about this notoriously difficult subject. DVD contains two version: an unexpurgated version (including explicit "hardcore" pornographic images) and a special "blurred" version edited for the classroom. Sections: Introduction | Porn Stars: Myths & Realities | Just a Fantasy? | Empowered by Porn? | Harder and Harder... | DVD Extra: An interview with Noam Chomsky.

The Purity Myth: The Virginity Movement's War Against Women (#WS-66)

Executive Producer Sut Jhally. 2011. 45 min. U.S. (English)

This alternately hilarious and infuriating new film adaptation of pioneering feminist blogger Jessica Valenti's bestselling book makes a powerful case that evangelical Christians, right-wing politicians, and conservative activists have been using irrational fears around young women's sexuality to undermine women's autonomy and roll back women's rights. In a wide-ranging analysis that moves from 'purity balls' and the abstinence movement to right-wing attacks on Planned Parenthood and women's reproductive health care, Valenti targets the persistent patriarchal assumption that men know what's best for women -- and that a woman's worth depends on what she does, or does not do, sexually. The result is a timely and clarifying look at the relationship between women's equality, women's sexuality, and a reactionary political movement that is working on multiple fronts to undermine both. Ideal for courses in women's studies, women's health issues, gender studies, and contemporary politics.

Question One: The battle for same-sex marriage in America has just begun(#WS-91)

Directed by Joseph Fox. 2012, 113 min. U.S.

This documentary Film is about the battle for same-sex marriage in America. On May 6th, 2009 Maine became the first state in this country to legislatively grant same-sex couples the right to marry. Seven months later, on November 3rd 2009 Maine reversed, becoming the thirty-first state in USA to say 'no' to gay and lesbian marriage. Filmed from within both campaigns, 'Question One' chronicles the fierce and emotional battle that took place in Maine during that time, a battle whose political symbolism is a bellwether for the greater ideological battlefield in American politics.

This documentary Film is about the battle for same-sex marriage in America. On May 6th, 2009 Maine became the first state in this country to legislatively grant same-sex couples the right to marry. Seven months later, on November 3rd 2009 Maine reversed, becoming the thirty-first state in USA to say 'no' to gay and lesbian marriage. Filmed from within both campaigns, 'Question One' chronicles the fierce and emotional battle that took place in Maine during that time, a battle whose political symbolism is a bellwether for the greater ideological battlefield in American politics.

The division of the world's peoples into distinct groups - "red," "black," "white" or "yellow" peoples - has became so deeply imbedded in our psyches, so widely accepted, many would promptly dismiss as crazy any suggestion of its falsity. Yet, that's exactly what this provocative, new three-hour series by California Newsreel claims. Race - The Power of an Illusion questions the very idea of race as biology, suggesting that a belief in race is no more sound than believing that the sun revolves around the earth.

Yet race still matters. Just because race doesn't exist in biology doesn't mean it isn't very real, helping shape life chances and opportunities.

Episode 1- The Difference Between Us examines the contemporary science - including genetics - that challenges our common sense assumptions that human beings can be bundled into three or four fundamentally different groups according to their physical traits.

Episode 2- The Story We Tell uncovers the roots of the race concept in North America, the 19th century science that legitimated it, and how it came to be held so fiercely in the western imagination. The episode is an eye-opening tale of how race served to rationalize, even justify, American social inequalities as "natural."

Episode 3- The House We Live In asks, If race is not biology, what is it? This episode uncovers how race resides not in nature but in politics, economics and culture. It reveals how our social institutions "make" race by disproportionately channeling resources, power, status and wealth to white people.

By asking, What is this thing called 'race'?, a question so basic it is rarely asked, Race - The Power of an Illusion helps set the terms that any further discussion of race must first take into account. Ideal for human biology, anthropology, sociology, American history, American studies, and cultural studies.

Rape in the Fields: The Hidden Story of Rape on the Job in America (#WS-86)Co-producer, writer, and correspondent Lowell Bergman. 2013. 60 mins. A PBS special documentary. This program includes material that may not be appropriate for younger viewers. Viewer discretion is advised.

FRONTLINE and Univision partner to tell the story of the hidden price many migrant women working in America's fields and packing plants pay to stay employed and provide for their families. This investigation is the result of a yearlong reporting effort by veteran FRONTLINE correspondent Lowell Bergman, the Investigative Reporting Program at UC Berkeley, and the Center for Investigative Reporting.

For many of the immigrant women working the fields and packing plants of America, the job comes with the low wages, gruelling physical work and exposure to harmful chemicals, but for some, it also comes with sexual harassment. Exact numbers are hard to come by as rape is normally an under-reported crime, but even more so when the population is undocumented women.

In this year long investigation, documentary producers spoke to dozens of women from tomato fields in Florida to packing plants in Iowa who say they've been sexually abused on the job. In this video, Lowell Bergman, the documentary's co-producer, writer and correspondent spoke to Univision News's Jorge Ramos about how the documentary came about.

Rebel: Loretta Velasquez, Secret Soldier of the American Civil War (#WS-30)Written and Directed by Maria Aqui Carter. 60 mins. 2013. A PBS documentary with English subtitles.

In 1861, at the outbreak of the American Civil War, a teenager from New Orleans headed to the front lines. Under the alias Harry T. Buford, he fought at First Bull Run, was wounded at Shiloh, and served as a Confederate spy. But Buford harbored a secret-he was really Loreta Velazquez, a Cuban immigrant from New Orleans. By 1863, Velazquez was spying for the Union. She scandalized America when she revealed her story in her 1876 memoir, The Woman in Battle. Attacked not only for her criticism of war, but her sexuality and social rule-breaking, Velazquez was dismissed as a hoax for 150 years. But evidence confirms she existed, one of over 1,000 women soldiers who served in the Civil War.

What made her so dangerous she was erased from history? Actors and historians bring Velazquez' story to life in this documentary, weaving drama and animation with historical and archival material to unravel the mystery of this secret soldier. Rebel is a detective story about a woman, a myth, and the politics of national memory.

Analysis from experts and personal insights from college students guide this illuminating examination of the cultural, medical, and psychological dynamics of disordered eating. Focusing on the stories of seven college students, the film looks at the clinical considerations involved with anemia and bulimia, and unpacks the extremely difficult personal dimensions of these illnesses. Along the way, the film offers valuable information about how to recognize the symptoms of eating disorders, and highlights proven strategies for recovery and healing. This film is a useful resource for health educators and for social science courses.

Awarded two prizes at Amsterdam’s prestigious International Documentary Film Festival, RED WEDDING demonstrates the liberating power of speech and memory in the quest for justice.

The Killing Fields in Cambodia became known to the world but little is known about the struggles of the women left behind. From 1975-79, Pol Pot’s campaign to increase the population forced at least 250,000 young Cambodian women to marry Khmer Rouge soldiers they had never met before. Sochan Pen was one of them. At 16, she was beaten and raped by her husband before managing to escape, though deeply scarred by her experience.

After 30 years of silence, Sochan is ready to file a complaint with the international tribunal that will try former Khmer leaders. With quiet dignity, she starts demanding answers from those who carried out the regime’s orders. Actual footage from the time help to underscore war’s traumatic legacy for Sochan’s generation of women.

Reflections Unheard: Black Women in Civil Rights: (#WS-83)

A film by Nevline Nnaji. 2013, 81 mins. U.S.

Where do black women activists fit into the epochal struggles for equality and liberation during the 1960s and 70s? This feature-length documentary unearths the story of black women’s political marginalization—between the male-dominated Black Power movement and second wave feminism, which was largely white and middle class—showing how each failed to recognize black women’s overlapping racial and gender identities.

Archival footage and in-depth interviews with former members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), SNCC’s Black Women’s Liberation Committee, the Black Panther Party, Third World Women’s Alliance, and the National Black Women’s Feminist Organization reveal how black women mobilized, fought for recognition, and raised awareness of how sexism and class issues affected women of color within and outside The Black Power Movement and mainstream feminism. Prominently featured activists include Frances Beale, Angela Davis, Kola Boof, Nikki Giovanni, Rosemari Mealy, Judy Richardson, Gwendolyn Simmons, Deborah Singletary, and Eugenia Wiltshire. Required viewing for Women’s Studies, African American Studies, and students of the Civil Rights Movement.

"As many young Black women begin to explore feminist works by noted women of color, this film is a valuable and important narrative that’s been added to the discourse."Tiff Jones, Coffee Rhetoric

#ReGENERATION - The Politics of Apathy and Activism (#WS-90)

Writer/Director: Phillip Montgomery. 2012. 81 mins. U.S.

Ryan Gosling narrates this engrossing film about social activism, the forces that galvanized the Occupy movement, and how a new generation of young people is coming to terms with a rapidly changing world. The film skillfully weaves commentary from some of the country's leading political and social analysts with personal observations from a collective of young musicians, a tight-knit group of suburban high-school students, and a young conservative family, providing a nuanced look at the myriad challenges facing the next generation of Americans.

The result is as personal as it is political, as much a portrait of the contemporary political scene as of a generation of young people finding their way in uncertain times. Features Noam Chomsky, the late Howard Zinn, Adbusters' Kalle Lasn, Andrew Bacevich, Amy Goodman, Talib

Kweli, Sut Jhally.

Rights & Wrongs: The Story of Women in Islam (#WS-57)

By Corine Huq, 2011. 135 min. U.S. English

This documentary explores Muslim women's present conditions and connects this with their past, returning to Islam's beginnings to uncover women's roles in the first Muslim communities. The exploration shows how various Islamic societies have found justification for their treatment of women but uses historians and scholars to debunk the many myths and misunderstandings about women's roles in Islam.

Salt of the Earth (#WS-35)Directed by Herbert J. Biberman. 1954. 94 mins. U.S.

Directed in 1953 by one of the infamous "Hollywood Ten", Herbert J. Biberman, Salt of the Earths was a collaborative effort by some of the most notable and talented blacklisted filmmakers, including Michael Wilson (Lawrence of Arabia, The Bridge on the River Kwai, and A Place in the Sun), Will Geer (In Cold Blood) and Paul Jarrico (Tom, Dick and Harry). Despite severe pressure from the U.S. government and such powerful figures as RKO studio chief Howard Hughes, this award-winning team created one of the most compelling family dramas and heartrending romances of the 1950's.

A powerful and emotionally-charged film, it is based on the 1950's strike by zinc miners in New Mexico, Salt of the Earth explores the complex issues of labor relations, minority rights and the struggle of women to achieve equality and dignity in their daily lives.Praise for the Film: Selected by the Library of congress as one of 100 films to be preserved for posterity.

SENORITA EXTRAVIADA, MISSING YOUNG WOMAN tells the haunting story of the more than 350 kidnapped, raped and murdered young women of Juárez, Mexico. Visually poetic, yet unflinching in its gaze, this compelling investigation unravels the layers of complicity that have allowed for the brutal murders of women living along the Mexico-U.S. border. In the midst of Juárez’s international mystique and high profile job market, there exists a murky history of grossly underreported human rights abuses and violence against women. The climate of violence and impunity continues to grow, and the murders of women continue to this day. Relying on what Portillo comes to see as the most reliable of sources – the testimonies of the families of the victims –SEÑORITA EXTRAVIADA, MISSING YOUNG WOMAN documents a two-year search for the truth in the underbelly of the new global economy. An Independent Television Service (ITVS) Production.

Sext Up Kids: How Children are Becoming Hyper-sexualized (#WS-62)

Directed by Maureen Palmer, Timothy M. Hogan & Rick Leguerrier, 2012.

42 min. U.S.(English)

The powder keg that is porn culture has exploded in the lives of North American children. From thongs and padded bras for 9-year-old girls to "sexting," 24-7 internet porn, and unfiltered social media, kids today are bombarded with commercial sexual appeals like never before. In this astonishing new documentary, award-winning documentary filmmaker Maureen Palmer (Leaving Bountiful, How to Divorce and Not Wreck the Kids) explores what this radical transformation of the culture means for young people, parents, and our very notions of childhood. Palmer interviews researchers who have been tracking how the accelerating pressure to be sexy -- and sexual -- is changing kids' behavior and undermining their health. She sits down with parents and educators struggling to help kids navigate puberty in a hyper-mediated cultural environment that no longer seems to recognize or respect the developmental needs of children. And she talks to teens and pre-teens who share eerily casual insights into the routine role sex plays in their lives. The result is a stunning exploration of the sexualization of childhood and a startling wake-up call for parents who still think their own children are immune to the excesses and influences of today's sexed-up youth culture.

Creating intimate portraits of Khady, Oraiza, Gila and Bikusben, The Shape of Water drives the dusty roads of Senegalese villages and the energetic streets of Dakar, walks into Brazil's Amazonian rainforest, stands on a busy corner in Jerusalem, and takes a train ride into the Himalayan foothills.

The women are abandoning female genital mutilation, tapping for rubber to protect the rainforest, opposing military occupations, sustaining the world's largest trades union, protesting dams that threaten to drown their homes and lives, and safeguarding the biodiversity of the planet. Their poignant stories, full of the tensions and pleasures of daily life, are brought to light in this award-winning documentary. Women are making a difference - one person at a time, one group at a time. Narrated by Susan Sarandon.

On a historic weekend in November of 1077, twenty thousand women and men left their jobs and homes in cities and small towns around the country to end discrimination against women and promote their equal rights. For four days at the first National Women's Conference in Houston, Texas, they caucused, argued and finally hammered out resolutions that revolutionized the women's movement. Archival footage breathes life into heated debates over controversial issues like the equal rights amendment, reproductive freedom, lesbian rights, sexual preference and minority rights. Former First Ladies Rosalynn Carter, Betty Ford, Lady Bird Johnson, and activists including Coretta Scott King, Bella Abzug and Barbara Jordan led and inspired so many to develop a Plan of Action.

Produced by Circle R Media and Media Projects, Inc., in Association with The Women's Museum: An Institute for the Future.

Slavery by Another Name (#WS-77)Directed by Sam Pollard, 2012. 90 mins. U.S.

A 90-minute documentary that challenges one of Americans’ most cherished assumptions: the belief that slavery in this country ended with the Emancipation Proclamation. The film tells how even as chattel slavery came to an end in the South in 1865, thousands of African Americans were pulled back into forced labor with shocking force and brutality. It was a system in which men, often guilty of no crime at all, were arrested, compelled to work without pay, repeatedly bought and sold, and coerced to do the bidding of masters. Tolerated by both the North and South, forced labor lasted well into the 20th century.

For most Americans this is entirely new history. Slavery by Another Name gives voice to the largely forgotten victims and perpetrators of forced labor and features their descendants living today.

Slim Hopes: Advertising & the Obsession with Thinness(#WS-38)

Executive Producer, Director, Editor: Sut Jhally, 1995. 30 mins. U.S.

Jean Kilbourne's award-winning video offers an in-depth analysis of how female bodies are depicted in advertising images and the devastating effects of those images on women's health. Addressing the relationship between these images and the obsession of girls and women with dieting and thinness, Slim Hopes offers a new way to think about life-threatening eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia, and a well-documented critical perspective on the social impact of advertising.

Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) students and their allies face unique challenges of violence and harassment in schools. SPEAK UP! explores what these students and their allies have done to transform their schools into safer and more welcoming environments. Interviews with students, parents, teachers, administrators and national activists highlight not only the need for transformation, but offer resources and advice for those actively working for change. Featuring interviews with Judy Shepard, Danny and Julie from MTV's Real World New Orleans and actor/musician Anthony Rapp, this innovative video offers a powerful look at the ways in which individuals are reclaiming their classrooms and hallways as spaces safe for GLBT students.

Spin the Bottle offers an indispensable critique of the role that contemporary popular culture plays in glamorizing excessive drinking and high-risk behaviors. Award-winning media critics Jackson Katz and Jean Kilbourne contrast these distorted representations with the often disturbing and dangerous ways that alcohol consumption affects the lives of real young men and women. Illustrating their analysis with numerous examples, Katz and Kilbourne decode the power and influence these seductive media images have in shaping gender identity, which is linked to the use of alcohol. Nowhere is this link more cause for concern than on America's college campuses. Sections: Get This Party Started: Glamorizing Alcohol | Under the Influence: Men & Alcohol | Message in a Bottle: Women & Drinking | Courage in a Can: Alcohol & Sex | Body Shots: Alcohol, Sex & Violence | Last Call: Changing the Culture. The DVD includes both a 64-minute feature of the film and a 35-minute abridged version, made specifically for use in the classroom.

Spitting Game: The College Hookup Culture (#WS-63) Directed by Denise Ann Evans, 2009. 65 min. U.S. (English). Filmmaker Denise Ann Evans draws heavily on the voices of students in this powerful and timely exploration of hookup culture on college campuses. Supplementing student testimony with analysis from experts and health professionals, the film's main concern is whether hookup culture is offering young people a new and potentially liberating set of sexual rules, or whether it's simply reinforcing traditional gender roles and blurring the line between consent and coercion.

The result is an invaluable teaching tool, one that asks tough questions about the relationship between hookup culture, gender politics, and the alarming levels of sexual assault and binge drinking that continue to plague college campuses.

Six divas of the sliver screen -- Sally Fi3eld, Dolly Parton, Shirley MacLaine, Daryl Hannah, Olympia Dukakis and Julia Roberts -- come together as bosom buddies in this hilarious and heartwarming story of life, love, and loss in a small Louisiana Parish. At the center of the group is Shelby Eatenton (Julia Roberts), newly married and joyfully pregnant, despite the fact that her diabetes could make childbirth life-threatening.Terrified and angry at the possibility of losing her only daughter, M'Lynn Eatenton (Sally Field) looks to her four closest friends for strength and laughter as she battles her deepest fears of death in order to join Shelby in celebrating the miracle of new life. Produced by Ray Stark.

Store Wars: When Wal-Mart Comes to Town (#WS-75)

Part I (of three parts) from The Globalization Triology

A film by Micha X. Peled, 2001. 59 min. Canada (English)

This one-hour documentary follows the conflict that polarizes a small town when Wal-Mart want to build a mega-store there. It is the story of Ashland, VA, population 7200, where the grocery store allows charge accounts and the doctor makes house calls. School bus drivers and morticians serve on the Town Council and residents are fiercely proud of their small-town character.

ThurgoodMarshall (#WS-80)

Directed by Michael Stevens, 2011. 105 mins. U.S.

Thurgood, filmed at the Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theater in Washington, D.C., debuted during Black History Month, 2011 on HBO. The one-man play stars Laurence Fishburne in his Tony-nominated performance as Thurgood Marshall, the remarkable Civil Rights lawyer and Supreme Court Justice.

THURGOOD was written by Academy Award® nominee and Emmy® Award winner George Stevens, Jr.; directed by Emmy® Award winner Michael Stevens; and executive produced by Bill Haber.

Told in the first person by Fishburne in the role of Marshall, THURGOOD is a compelling present-tense narration revisiting the turning points in his life and career as he remembers them. From childhood stories of his family and home life in Baltimore, to his college days at Howard University School of Law in Washington, D.C., Marshall recollects his triumphs over adversity to pursue a successful career in the judicial system fighting for human rights.

Establishing benchmarks in Civil Rights advancement, Marshall tried the historic case of Brown vs. Board of Education before the Supreme Court, successfully challenging the unconstitutional segregation of black and white students in public schools. His achievements eventually led him to become the first African-American to serve as a Supreme Court Justice.

Louisa May Alcott was a tomboy, as was her heroine, Jo March, in Little Women. But Jo, like most literary tomboys, was tamed once she reached adolescence. Real-life tomboys tell a different story. In this lively, inspiring documentary, interviews with African-American teenager, Jay Gillespie; firefighter, Tracy Driscoll; lesbian artist, Nancy Brooks Brody; and political activists, "Granny D.," are intercut with personal photographs and archival footage to celebrate tomboys of all ages. The connection between the rebel girl and the spirited woman is gloriously clear. Their tales of energy and enterprise are a revelation to us all. Filmmaker Info: A documentary film by Julie Akeret & Christian McEwen, distributed by Women Make Movies, NYC.

Top Secret Rosies: The Female Computers of WWII (#WS-97)Directed by Leann Erickson. 2010. 60 mins. This DVD features subtitles in English (SDH)

In 1942 a secret U.S. military program was launched to recruit women to the war effort. But unlike the efforts to recruit Rosie the Riveter to the factory, this clandestine search targeted female mathematicians who would become human 'computers' for the U.S. Army. From the bombing of Axis Europe to the assaults on Japanese strongholds, women worked around-the-clock six days a week, creating ballistics tables that proved crucial to Allied success. Rosie made the weapons, but the female computers made them accurate. When the first electronic computer (ENIAC) was developed to aid the Army's calculation efforts, six of these women were tapped to become its first programmers.

Top Secret Rosies is the as-yet-untold story of women and technology that helped win a war and usher in the modern computer age. This is the chronicle of four very different women who worked as human computers at the University of Pennsylvania from 1942-1946. Capturing the opportunities and exhilaration of the times and exploring the moral dilemmas inherent in their work, Top Secret Rosies follows their efforts as they labored night and day to create the mathematical computations that made every Allied bomb and bullet more deadly.

While the social construction of femininity has been widely examined, the dominant role of masculinity has until recently remained largely invisible. Tough Guise is the first educational video geared toward college and high school students to systematically examine the relationship between pop-cultural imagery and the social construction of masculine identities in the U.S. at the dawn of the 21st century. In this innovative and wide-ranging analysis, Jackson Katz argues that widespread violence in American society, including the tragic school shootings in Littleton, Colorado, Jonesboro, Arkansas, and elsewhere, needs to be understood as part of an ongoing crisis in masculinity. This exciting new media literacy tool -- utilizing racially diverse subject matter and examples -- will enlighten and provoke students (both males and females) to evaluate their own participation in the culture of contemporary masculinity. Sections: Introduction | Hidden: A Gender | Upping the Ante | Backlash | The Tough Guise | The School Shootings | Constructing Violent Masculinity | Sexualized Violence | Invulnerability | Vulnerability | Better Man.

In this highly anticipated update of the influential and widely acclaimed Tough Guise, pioneering anti-violence educator and cultural theorist Jackson Katz argues that the ongoing epidemic of men's violence in America is rooted in our inability as a society to move beyond outmoded ideals of manhood.

In a sweeping analysis that cuts across racial, ethnic, and class lines, Katz examines mass shootings, day-to-day gun violence, violence against women, bullying, gay-bashing, and American militarism against the backdrop of a culture that has normalized violent and regressive forms of masculinity in the face of challenges to traditional male power and authority. Along the way, the film provides a stunning look at the violent, sexist, and homophobic messages boys and young men routinely receive from virtually every corner of the culture, from television, movies, video games, and advertising to pornography, the sports culture, and U.S. political culture.

Tough Guise 2 stands to empower a new generation of young men -- and women -- to challenge the myth that being a real man means putting up a false front and engaging in violent and self-destructive behavior.

According to a wave of recent new reports and high-profile books, "hookup" culture is in the process of replacing traditional dating on college campuses -- radically altering how young people think about intimacy and sex, and liberating young women from patriarchal rituals and norms. But for anyone looking to get a handle on these allegedly transformative changes, there's been little beyond speculation and anecdotal evidence.

This presentation by Stanford University's Paula England, a leading researcher in the sociology of gender, clarifies the issue. Mobilizing extensive research, England begins to chart whether hookup culture represents a real challenge to the old gender order, or whether we're simply seeing traditional gender norms dressed up in new social forms. Especially suitable for courses in gender, sociology, psychology, and sexuality.

The Vagina Monologues (#WS-43)

Featuring Eve Ensler, 2002, 77 mins. U.S.

Now the intimacy of Eve Ensler's original show has been lovingly brought to the screen. THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES captures Eve Ensler's unique performance of her work, and travels beyond the stage as she explores the creative impetus behind the monologues, and conducts a series of new and revealing interviews as inspiring as those that brought about the original work.

This play was created and performed by Eve Ensler and debuted off-off-Broadway in 1996. This controversial work soon rode a wave of national acclaim and continues to be performed in North America and around the world. The show has been called "a bona fide phenomenon" by The New York Times. "A work of art with wildfire word of mouth" said Variety. "Simply spectacular. An "A" said Entertainment Weekly.

The War Zone(#WS-44)

Written and Directed by Maggie Hadleigh-West, 1999, Italy

What does it feel like to be a woman on the street in a cultural environment that does nothing to discourage men from heckling, following, touching or disparaging women in public spaces? Filmmaker Maggie Hadleigh-West believes that the streets are a War Zone for women. Armed with only a video-camera, she both demonstrates this experience and, by turning and confronting her abusers, reclaims space that was stolen from her.

War Zone is an excellent discussion starter for both men and women. It gives voice and expression to a disturbing daily aspect of being a woman in this society. It also gives men a direct personal feeling for what harassing behavior looks and feels like to a woman. Young men who may think such behavior is cool or funny will be forced to rethink their assumptions.

War Zone is a classroom, documentary edition of Maggie Hadleigh-West's first film by the same title. Her film has been screened and applauded at scores of festivals in the U.S. and abroad. She has appeared to discuss the film on the Today Show, CBS News, 20/20, BBC, NPR, CNN, and Eye to Eye with Connie Chung.

During the spring of 2000, eleven girls aged 8 to 16 from a variety of socio-economic backgrounds and two classrooms of middle and high school students were interviewed about their views on media culture and its impact on their lives. Their insightful and provocative responses provide the central theme of the film, a half-hour examination of how the media presents girls. Juxtaposing footage culled from a typical week of TV broadcasting with original interviews, What a Girl Wants will provoke debate and, ideally, act as a catalyst for change in media content. Sections: Intro | Teen Products | Premature Toothpicks | Big Ones | Get the Guy | Follow the Leader | Booty Videos | Hey, Let's Have Sex | I Could Be Your Daughter | All Girls Got Killed.

White Like Me, based on the work of acclaimed anti-racist educator and author Tim Wise, explores race and racism in the US through the lens of whiteness and white privilege. In a stunning reassessment of the American ideal of meritocracy and claims that we've entered a post-racial society, Wise offers a fascinating look back at the race-based white entitlement programs that built the American middle class, and argues that our failure as a society to come to terms with this legacy of white privilege continues to perpetuate racial inequality and race-driven political resentments today. For years, Tim Wise's bestselling books and spellbinding lectures have challenged some of our most basic assumptions about race in America. White Like Me is the first film to bring the full range of his work to the screen -- to show how white privilege continues to shape individual attitudes, electoral politics, and government policy in ways too many white people never stop to think about.

Women, War and Peace (#WS-85)Produced by Abigail E. Disney. 2014. 5-part special series from PBS.

Featuring narrators Matt Damon, Tilda Swinton, Geena Davis and Alfre Woodard,Women, War & Peace is the most comprehensive global media initiative ever mounted on the roles of women in war and peace. This five-part series will present its groundbreaking message across the globe by utilizing all forms of media, including U.S. and international primetime television, radio, print, web, and worldwide community screenings, and will be accompanied by an educational and outreach initiative designed to advance international accountability in regard to women and security.

The five episodes in the series are as follows:

I Came to Testify is the moving story of how a group of 16 women who had been imprisoned and raped by Serb-led forces in the Bosnian town of Foca broke history’s great silence – and stepped forward to take the witness stand in an international court of law

Pray the Devil Back to Hell is the astonishing story of the Liberian women who took on the warlords and regime of dictator Charles Taylor in the midst of a brutal civil war, and won a once unimaginable peace for their shattered country in 2003.

The War We Are Living travels to Cauca, a mountainous region in Colombia’s Pacific southwest, where two extraordinary Afro-Colombian women are braving a violent struggle over their gold-rich lands. They are standing up for a generation of Colombians who have been terrorized and forcibly displaced as a deliberate strategy of war.

War Redefined, the capstone of Women, War & Peace, challenges the conventional wisdom that war and peace are men’s domain through incisive interviews with leading thinkers, Secretaries of State and seasoned survivors of war and peace-making. Interviewees include Secretary of State Hillary Clinton; Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee; Bosnian war crimes investigator Fadila Memisevic; and globalization expert Moisés Naím.

Wrestling with Manhood is the first educational program to pay attention to the enormous popularity of professional wrestling among male youth, addressing its relationship to real-life violence and probing the social values that sustain it as a powerful cultural force. Richly illustrating their analysis with numerous examples, Sut Jhally and Jackson Katz - the award-winning creators of the videos Dreamworlds and Tough Guise, respectively - offer a new way to think about the enduring problems of men's violence against women and bullying in our schools.

Drawing the connection between professional wrestling and the construction of contemporary masculinity, they show how so-called "entertainment" is related to homophobia, sexual assault and relationship violence. They further argue that to not engage with wrestling in a serious manner allows cynical promoters of violence and sexism an uncontested role in the process by which boys become "men." Designed to engage the wrestling fan as well as the cultural analyst, Wrestling with Manhood will provoke spirited debate about some of our most serious social problems.

The DVD includes two versions of Wrestling with Manhood. Both contain violent physical and sexual imagery, and viewer discretion is strongly advised. The abridged version (45 min.) is edited for profanity, nudity, and length.